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“The plates are moving,” John Prescott remarked last year. Had he specified “tectonic”, it would have aided our comprehension, but the remark was nonetheless perceptive. Every few years strains beneath the political crust resolve themselves in massive changes in the landscape. David Cameron’s election as Conservative Party leader will hopefully render the Tories unrecognisably attractive and electable. The seismic effect of his shift to the centre has also intensified the rumblings that shake Charles Kennedy and Tony Blair. The Liberal Democrat leader cannot survive for long and I hope that early in 2006 he will take advantage of any quiet moment to leave his post, apparently of his own volition. In two successive general elections his party has increased its share of the poll and its seats in Parliament. That record gives him the chance to leave with dignity, but it is not a reason for staying. Nor is the predictable mayhem amongst the Liberal Democrats that will follow his departure. Menzies Campbell, the party’s deputy leader commented, last week that the Liberal Democrats have a wealth of talent in Parliament. That is the problem. It is far from obvious whom they should choose and in which direction they should head. Campbell himself has the gravitas to be leader. He looks like a Tory and might scoop up traditional Conservative votes. But traditional Toryism is in collapse, which is why the Conservatives have made the historic decision to change. Anyway, would the Liberal Democrats seriously elect a man nearly twice as old as Cameron? Simon Hughes (the party’s president) offers a lurch to the left, away from the over-crowded middle ground. The Liberal Democrats have long been the only major party overtly committed to higher taxes and opposed to the Iraq war. Since Cameron’s election they also hold the monopoly of opposition to student top-up fees. But Hughes looks a decidedly dated radical. Though a gifted communicator, his wholesomeness easily cloys. In any case, the other brains in the party want to move in the opposite direction. One of them, the party’s home affairs shadow Mark Oaten, seems to be self-destructing, torn between appearing loyal to Kennedy and looking like he is ready for the leadership contest. To my mind, the most impressive candidate is David Laws, spokesman on work and pensions and co-editor of last year’s Orange Book. That collection of essays urged the party to adopt economic liberalism and free markets, to work for limits to the European Union’s powers, to resist the nanny state, but to recognize the efficacy of prison in protecting society from criminals. At age 40 Laws looks good on television and sounds eminently reasonable. But he has yet to show charisma to match Cameron’s (or even Kennedy’s before the poor fellow became uncomfortably burdened by the leadership). Liberal Democrat activists have not made the same intellectual journey as the bright young things that they have sent to parliament. They will not be easily convinced to elect, like the Tories have, a leader with looks, sound bites and policies inspired by Blair. Kennedy has been his party’s John Major. He has remained bravely indecisive, commanding his party’s catamaran with a foot on each hull as they move apart. After the unavoidable bust-up to come, people will look back nostalgically on his reign. In truth, the party’s dichotomy must be resolved and the sooner the better. The difficulty is that in a party with competing talents as well as philosophies, it is doubtful that the next leader can sort it out. Cameron has left the field clear for the Liberal Democrats on top-up fees, but it is well worth it for the sake of greater intellectual consistency in Tory policy. In other ways he is applying pressure that undermines his third party rivals. A picture is worth a thousand words and his wonderfully choreographed bicycle rides have more eloquently communicated a concern for the environment than all Kennedy’s speeches. In due course Cameron’s environment strategy will bring dilemmas. He has set up a working group headed by John Gummer, who is much given to virulent criticism of America’s failure to sign the Kyoto accords. The Conservatives must not become anti-American. The group also includes Zac Goldsmith. The highly articulate environment campaigner has the panache of his late father Sir Jimmy, and looks that make women swoon. It was almost too good to be true when a while back he joined the Tories. That too was a sign that the plates were moving. But he is doggedly anti-nuclear power, another thing that the Tories cannot be. Maybe Cameron thinks that he can worry about such conflicts later. The Tory strategy has already moved the ground beneath Blair’s feet too. Cameron’s decision to support the prime minister’s schools reforms is delightfully destabilising. The government stands little chance of passing its legislation without Tory support. Diverse elements of the Labour Party object to granting trust schools relative autonomy over admissions policy and budgets, thus diminishing the role of local education authorities. Cameron has left himself room for manouevre. If the prime minister waters down his proposals the Conservatives could still vote against him, and the government might yet be defeated. But if Blair stands firm, the bill will be forced down Labour gullets with Tory votes. That would quickly lead to backbench revenge and shorten Blair’s tenure. The education debate has highlighted a feebleness in Cameron’s position. Skilfully Blair diverted attention from his own quandary to the Tories’ supposed support for academic selection. Actually the Conservatives are unsure whether they back it or not. Their spokesman David Willetts asserts implausibly that no head masters would want to adopt it even given a green light. But since academic selection exists and is popular in Kent, Buckinghamshire and Northern Ireland, it could presumably catch on elsewhere too. Cameron must put Blair on the back foot. If he believes that academic selection is unfair, why has he not abolished it where it continues? Are other forms of selection are any fairer on the child? The London Oratory School, attended by two of Blair’s sons, selects according to families’ Catholicity. Other schools might reject pupils whose parents do not sign a contract guaranteeing their support for school disciplines. Is it more just to reject youngsters whose parents are irreligious or irresponsible than to turn them down because they cannot meet the school’s academic standard? Happily, then, there is room for principled debate even when all the parties converge at the political centre. Cameron’s desire to be clear and consistent will force him to sort out his party’s stance on academic selection and other issues too. Last week in an interesting speech Gordon Brown opened a political divide with Cameron on the state’s role in relieving poverty. The new Tory leader has declared that there is such a thing as society; it is just not the same thing as the state. Brown countered: “Fairness can be advanced by, but cannot in the end be guaranteed by, charities, however benevolent; by markets, however dynamic; or by individuals, however well meaning; but guaranteed only by enabling government.” Cameron will be brave enough to continue the argument. Brown misrepresents the Tories if he suggests that they do not believe in a state safety net. Even under Margaret Thatcher the welfare state was colossal and grew remorselessly. However, she also argued that a society in which people were encouraged to save and to give to others was morally superior to one in which state interventions discouraged thrift and personal responsibility. She was regarded as too hatchet-faced to carry credibility. But Cameron is not. Anyway, during the last eight years Brown has produced complicated welfare systems that work badly and have drawn vast extra numbers into dependency. He has created conditions in which the public may listen sympathetically to an alternative policy from the Tories. The tremors from the Tory party are being felt by Brown as well as Blair. Opinion polls used to suggest that Labour would receive a boost when the reliable Chancellor replaced the mistrusted Prime Minister. But today Brown’s economic stewardship is being questioned, and the relevant comparison is now between him and Cameron. Tory youth has already made Blair look like the past. Equally, the contrast with Cameron scarcely helps Brown to look sunny or new. Prescott ’s reference to plates was code for a movement inside the Labour party in Brown’s direction. Today’s geological upheaval is much broader. It makes even the colossus of the Chancellor tremble a bit.
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